


Midnight Conversations

by AvecPlaisir



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: This is what happens when you ship Pearlnet, but also kind of ship all three of them together and also value platonic intimacy, definitely not necessarily mutually so, pairings not necessarily romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvecPlaisir/pseuds/AvecPlaisir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet have a much needed talk while Steven sleeps. Set after the events in Week of Sardonyx.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Conversations

“Garnet?” Amethyst called softly. “Pearl?”

Only the soft sounds of a sleeping house greeted her. The hum of the refrigerator, the creek of the floor boards under her feet. Steven's soft breathing. Pearl and Garnet weren't there, that was for sure, and Amethyst didn't know where else to look. They hadn’t been in their respective rooms when she’d checked earlier, and she’d kind of been expecting to find them here. At the very least, Pearl usually hung around while Steven slept. 

But not tonight, apparently. 

Amethyst sighed and headed outside. The night was a nice one; the stars were out, there was a warm breeze. She had nothing better to do than enjoy it. 

Up on one of the hands of the carving on the side of the temple, Amethyst aimlessly kicked a stray rock and watched it skid forward. As she stepped after it, she saw a familiar shape ahead in the moonlight. No— _shapes_. 

_What?_

She moved forward towards the center of the hand, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the low light. The shapes dissolved into outlines highlighted in soft pale light. Pearl and Garnet were both sitting, their bodies facing the ocean, their heads tilted towards one another. Garnet's hands were splayed behind her, her legs stretched out in front of her, the picture of cool ease.

Pearl's cheeks were slightly flushed. She was sitting primly in between Garnet’s legs.

Amethyst took a step back, stomach churning. Her foot hit the rock she had kicked earlier, sending it clattering back. This time the other two noticed the noise and turned to look.

“Amethyst?” Pearl said, surprised. 

Amethyst barely heard her. 

“Is everything alright? Did you want something?”

Amethyst was looking anywhere but at her. 

“No, it’s—nothing. I’ll just—go.”

“Amethyst,” Garnet's stern tone stopped her. But Garnet's tone softened as she patted the area next to her. “Come sit with us.”

Amethyst kicked yet another loose rock, then another. They both scattered off the edge. Her hands balled into fists. Her lip curled. “No,” she said. Then she said, “I wouldn’t want to _interrupt_.”

Pearl blinked at her owlishly, but it was Garnet who replied.

“You won’t be interrupting anything that wouldn’t benefit from your presence.”

But Amethyst wasn't really listening. She was pacing back and forth in short circles. She gritted her teeth. Then, she exploded. “Why does she always do this?" she snapped, rounding on the two of them. "You did this with Rose, too, P! Just because you’ve known them longer—”

“Amethyst,” said Pearl, stricken.

“—doesn’t mean you get to have them all for yourself!”

The silence following her outburst rang out, but it was short lived.

“Amethyst,” said Garnet calmly, “Pearl doesn’t _have_ me .”

“Oh yeah?” demanded Amethyst. “Then what’s with this? Huh?" She gestured angrily to their positioning. 

“If you come over here you can sit between my legs too.”

“It’s not the same! You’re--you're only offering out of pity!”

Garnet raised an eyebrow. “Did you just come up here to pick fights, then?”

Amethyst flushed and crossed her arms over her chest. But after a moment she slinked over to the other two. Garnet pulled her down so that she sat squashed next to Pearl. Pearl shifted over to give her more room.

“Well this is comfy,” said Amethyst, dryly, after a moment. “Let’s just hope Steven doesn’t wake up and try to join.”

“Amethyst,” started Pearl haltingly. “I’m—I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I was trying to take anyone away from you.”

Amethyst scowled and picked at her knee. “Whatever, P. I’m over it.”

“You’re obviously not,” countered Garnet.

“Whatever!” Amethyst exclaimed, exasperated. “Can we just—talk about something else?”

“Like?”

“Like,” Amethyst hesitated, “what were you guys talking about before?”

Pearl’s eyes widened and she glanced at Garnet. 

“We were just,” she started, smoothing her shorts, “um.”

Amethyst understood.

“You were talking about Sardonyx, weren’t you?”

“Among other things,” Garnet said.

“That was a mess, wasn’t it? This whole week.”

“Mmm." 

“Aw, remember when Rose was here and we’d get into the dumbest arguments? I know we used to fight, like, all the time. But now it doesn’t feel like we did.”

Pearl was looking at her with large eyes. Garnet was looking at the stars.

“Now, I only really remember the good stuff,” Amethyst finished wistfully. “Not,” she added quickly, looking at Garnet, “that you aren’t doing a good job, Garnet. ‘Cuz you are. You’re totally carrying us on your back. I don’t know what we’d do without—”

Garnet cut her off.

“It’s okay, Amethyst.”

Amethyst sat back, resting her head on Garnet’s chest.

“Hey. Garnet.”

Garnet glanced down at her.

Amethyst rubbed her own arms. 

“I just want to apologize,” she said. “What I said before—at the Communication Hub—it’s not really true. We don’t fuse with you to make ourselves stronger. I mean, yeah, that’s part of it, but mainly it’s just. Being close to you. It makes me feel strong. You know. On the inside.”

Amethyst took a breath. Pearl was very still.

“And that’s what fusion supposed to be about, right? I know how important it is to you, obviously. So I didn’t want you to think I was, like, using you to win an arm wrestling contest or something. Fusing with you—it just feels good.”

Amethyst glanced up at Garnet but Garnet still wasn’t looking at her. Amethyst glanced at Pearl but Pearl wasn’t looking at her either. She was watching Garnet’s face.

“What you two need to understand,” Garnet said in a low voice, “is that I like fusing with you as much as you like fusing with me.”

“No way!” Amethyst protested. “Look at what happened with Sugilite! I went berserk!”

“We _both_ went berserk,” said Garnet. “We _both_ got carried away, Amethyst.”

Pearl gave a huff of a self-deprecating laugh. “And at least _you_ didn’t trick anyone into fusing.”

“Oh. Yeah,” said Amethyst. “No kidding.”

“But thank you,” said Garnet, placing a hand on Amethyst’s shoulder, “for telling me that.”

“Eh,” Amethyst shrugged. “No biggie.” But she couldn’t completely hide her smile. 

Garnet removed her hand and sat back again. 

“You were right to bring up Rose,” she said. “She’s not around to fix our problems anymore. We’re going into new and unfamiliar territory, what just might be the beginning of another war. We’re going to need to rely on each other more than ever before, and that means we have to trust each other. That means _talking_ and being _honest_ about our needs and desires. If we can’t do that, we’ve lost before we’ve even begun.”

“You’re right,” said Pearl, tears in her eyes. “I’m—”

“You’ve apologized enough, Pearl,” said Garnet. “Now it’s important that we learn from our mistakes, and move on.”

Pearl wiped her eyes and nodded, once.

They fell into silence, and stayed there. The stars twinkled overhead. The pinprick of light of an airplane moved among them. Eventually, Pearl said:

“It’s almost dawn. Steven will be waking soon.”

“Shh,” Garnet admonished, and nodded downwards. Pearl glanced over and saw that Amethyst had fallen asleep at some point and was now snoring softly.

“I don’t know how she does that,” Pearl said. 

Garnet chuckled. 

“There’s a lot of things we don’t understand about Amethyst.”

Pearl reached over and brushed some hair from Amethyst’s face.

“Garnet,” she said.

“Pearl.”

“I’m not over Rose. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

Garnet was silent.

“But,” continued Pearl, softly, looking down at her own hand resting gently on Amethyst’s forehead, “sometimes, when I’m with you, like now, I feel like...that doesn’t matter.”

Garnet watched pink strips of light bleed into the sky on the horizon. She watched the city slowly start to wake.

“Sometimes,” Pearl said, “when I imagine Rose holding me like she used to, her hands turn into your hands, and her face turns into your face.”

A lone seagull flew low over the waves, it's beak stretched wide.

“I’m sorry,” Pearl whispered.

Garnet closed her eyes and wished, not for the first time, that Rose had never left.

"Pearl." 

"Yes?" 

"I thought that I told you to learn." 


End file.
